Totally off topic: Gizmodo links to a site that explains why the Trilobite robot vacuum cleaner costs $1799 and the iRobot Roomba $159.99.

Anyway, neither of them would have much room for manoeuvre here. There’s area, but not much space.

When Lynne Truss’s ‘Eats Shoots and Leaves’ appeared in Britain last November, I was sure I didn’t want to read it, because the hype was suspicious.

But I had the impression that more and more people whose opinions I thought I trusted, and even including Americans (it had not then been published in the USA) raved about it, I was driven to buy a copy, a big mistake, for I have not been able to get on with it – but at least I know that now!

It sold remarkably well – 700,000 copies? It was in good time for the Christmas market, so I wonder if 700,000 copies have been read. The book even has its own website. Anyway, now I have seen a few less excited discussions, I suppose my work has been done for me. Scribe at The Discouraging Word was not 100% in favour, although his entry was tongue-in-cheek against the denigrators of strict punctuation. (Picayune punctuation rules, May 7th, and see also January 6th. I see the American edition has ‘a foreword by Frank McCourt, Author of “Angela’s Ashes”‘!

Well, it’s not the author’s fault that the book has been overhyped, and she certainly deserves admiration for her commercial success – I remember being told this once when I was complaining about another great commercial success, Peter Mayle’s ‘A Year in Provence’ (it was long my desire to write a satire on this called ‘A Year in Franconia’, but I realized no-one would have wanted to buy it).

I attempted to teach punctuation for twenty years, and this must be part of my reason for irritation. Every so often a new and interesting book on punctuation comes out, and there are a number of good old standards, so why should this one, that consists at least 50% of extraneous material, be so praised? I know many people like to read something light and amusing, but I prefer my punctuation discussion less packaged. The problem starts with the title joke, on the back cover. I have read this joke a number of times on the Internet over the years, and I too thought it was funny the first time I read it, but Truss spoils it. She’s one of those people who can’t tell jokes. ‘The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual…’ This punctuation reference, cheekily inserted to refer to the book, does not occur in the original joke and it is a spoiler – not only superfluous but detrimental to the humour. ‘The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.’ – Good jokes don’t need ‘sure enough’ pushed in, nor “confused waiter” instead of just “waiter”. (For the joke as it appears, see continuation of this entry).

There was a Guardian review by Stephen Poole on December 13th 2003 that I concur with. (LATER NOTE: not sure if I concur about ‘Eric’ Fowler – who he?)

bq. Truss tries very hard to be funny, and she is often successful. …And if we are to be brutally honest, her regular quotations from others who have written on this subject – true giants such as Eric Fowler, Kingsley Amis or George Bernard Shaw – serve only to show that pedantry works best when allied to an economical wit and rock-solid prose, rather than Truss’s own consistent style of overheated whimsy, which becomes oppressive even in such a brief book.

The question I am left with is: who was the book written for? On the dustjacket it says

bq. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset about it.

I wonder. It seems to me it is a book for people who haven’t thought much about punctuation and haven’t got enough to read. Definitely a popularizing book, but popularizing by ladling jokes on. The picture of the author inside the back cover says a lot:

Continue reading →

Das Staatssicherheitsgericht, bei dem gestern der Prozess gegen die mutmaßlichen Al-Qaida-Hintermänner anfing, musste sich für unzuständig erklären, da Staatssicherheitsgerichte Mitte Mai abgeschafft wurden. Bericht. Neue Gerichte, die sie ersetzen sollen, existieren noch nicht.

According to the Independent, the trial of 69 al-Qa’ida suspects in connection with the bombings in Istanbul last November was opened by a Turkish state security court yesterday, but the court then had to rule that it was unfit to hear the case. Political courts of this type were abolished last month in order to meet EU standards. New courts to replace them have not yet been created.

bq. State security courts similar to the one expected to hear the al-Qa’ida case yesterday were abolished last month as part of legal reforms designed to bring Turkey into line with European Union standards. The courts were set up after a military coup in 1980 to hear “political crimes”, generally a catch-all for far left and pro-Kurdish dissidents.

Hürriyet’s English version is less transparent, whether for political or linguistic reasons I don’t know.

These reforms were faster than the abolition of the Lord Chancellor in Britain last year!

Can everyone spell El Qaida in English and German? For EN I have seen El Qa’ida, El Quaida and El Qaida, for DE El/Al Qaida and El Kaida. Here is one take:

bq. Al-Qaida (القاعده in Arabic and also transliterated as al-Qaeda, al-Qa’ida, al-Quaida, el-Qaida, äl-Qaida and is Arabic for the foundation) is an Islamist paramilitary movement which is widely regarded as a terrorist organization, especially in the West.

The BBC has just started a new series of its legal programme called Law in Action. The first programme was broadcast on May 28th at 16.00 BST and it can be heard again here. Here’s the page with information on the contents of the programme. Topics are barristers’ fees in Very High Cost Criminal Cases, police cooperation with the DPP, sharia courts in England, and cohabitation:

bq. Earlier this week, it was reported that Elayne Oxley had been awarded a £100,000 share of her former partner’s home, even though the couple were not married and she made no financial contribution to the mortgage. The press heralded it as a landmark case – but was it? We take a closer look.

There is more information on the programme on the BBC website, and even an RSS newsfeed for information about it.

You can normally listen again to a BBC radio programme within seven days, but I noticed with some Radio 4 programmes I sometimes listen to there are now more earlier programmes available. So you should always look at the web page of a particular programme to see if there are earlier programmes available.

(The BBC website is very slow now, so I will close here).

(Day and night letterbox, Nuremberg court authorities.
Letters posted here up to 24 hours (midnight) will be within the deadline for that date. Pleadings in Land Registry matters should not be posted here, to avoid legal prejudice, but handed in at the Land Registry office.)

In response to a comment on the previous entry, I will add some more remarks: of course, the normal British name for the process should be relay interpreting, and the American equivalent relay interpretation. The term double interpretation or double interpreting seems odd. EU note here.

bq. Interpreters use relay interpreting when the language which is spoken in the meeting room is not covered by any of the colleages in the booth.
By connecting to one of the other booths where the language in question is covered, the interpreters can translate for their customers.
Example:
In a meeting where Greek is covered in the German and the Dutch booth only, all the other booths will listen in to one of these booths (“take relay” in interpreter jargon) and be able translate into their respective mothertongues.

Of course, as was pointed out in the case itself, ‘commercial’ relay interpreting is not the same thing as relay interpreting in a criminal court.

The case transcript is interesting because it does consider all these issues and it indicates that the judges gave intelligent consideration to the problem. The situation was that an 11-year-old Bosnian Romany girl was charged with attempted pickpocketing (magistrates’ court). The magistrate was a stipendiary magistrate, i.e. a qualified lawyer sitting alone, like a German Einzelrichter – since 1999 the term has been changed to district judge. There are no qualified Bosnian Romany interpreters in the UK! There was one interpreter, Donald Kenrick, who appears to be a Romany interpreter, but not of the right dialect, and the magistrate said the trial could go ahead.

The girl (despite being unable to communicate in Esperanto, see other comment on last entry) challenged this. A challenge went to the Administrative Court, which used to be called the Divisional Court of the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court, the nearest England and Wales has to an administrative court system.

Here’s the case reference:
METROPOLITAN STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE EX PARTE “J”, R v. [1999] EWHC Admin 671 (12th July, 1999)

Such applications for judicial review (that has a different meaning in England from the U.S. meaning) are in the name of the Queen (R for Regina). The neutral citation uses EWHC to mean the High Court of England and Wales.

The case against one of the co-accused was dropped for language reasons. The magistrate wrote:

bq. “The Defence contended that Romany was the only language spoken and understood by the youth. The only interpreter was one who could translate English into Serbo Croat — a language discrete from Romany. By consent … a compromise was attempted whereby the evidence was given in English and a sworn interpreter translated that into Serbo Croat to a male who came with the youth and translated the Serbo Croat into — it is said — Romany.

bq. “The result was chaotic, it was slow and noisy, no-one knew if the translation was accurate or not or whether the youth understood the proceedings. I was sitting with two experienced Youth Court Justices and the three of us quickly resolved that the proceedings were unsatisfactory, irregular and possibly unlawful.

bq. “Accordingly the trial was aborted and I set in motion an argument as to the legality of what I shall call the double translation.”

(Ah! ‘…what I shall call the double translation”)

In the present case, the interpreter said that he and the girl had 90% mutual understanding, but only 80% mutual understanding of courtroom language. The magistrate ruled that the case could go ahead.

bq. ” Conclusions
“1. Bosnian Romany is a dialect of a discrete language classical Romany.
“2. The so called double interpretation is not lawful.
“3. Translation into a second language is not lawful.
“4. In a Youth Court, if the competent authorities fail to provide an interpreter in the mother tongue of the defendant, that is prima facie a breach of Article 6(3)(e) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
“5. Failure by the competent authority — here the Court — to provide an interpreter is an unfairness which is an abuse of process and would lead to a stay.
“Fortunately, I do not have to stay these proceedings as Dr Kenrick will translate. Had he or another not been available I would, as I have said, have ordered a stay.”

The court heard evidence from Rowland [sic – it should be ‘Roland’] Chesters, of the Institute of Linguists, whose evidence seems to have exerted great influence. It also considered case law. It quashed the magistrate’s decision:

bq. Let me return finally to the instant challenge. For the reasons given it is plain, and indeed agreed, that the magistrate’s order cannot stand. Accordingly, certiorari must go to quash it.

(The term certiorari has since been replaced by quashing order in England and Wales – it’s still used at the U.S. Supreme Court, of course).

The court did not go further – it did not order the proceedings to be abandoned, although it commented that their future was somewhat doubtful. The remarks about the lawfulness of ‘double interpretation’ were obiter dicta, that is, not part of the decision and not binding, but reflecting how the court might decide in future in a similar case.

The case is worth reading. This summary is to point out why the court thought relay interpreting was the best of a bad bunch. It doesn’t alter the fact that there are still, presumably, no competent Bosnian Romany interpreters in the country.

Finally, a note on Donald Kenrick (and Google reveals a number of other interesting sites):

bq. Donald Kenrick took a first-class honours degree in Arabic from London University, followed by a Master’s on the image of the Jew in Scandinavian literature, for which he was required to master all the nordic languages as well as Hebrew and Yiddish.
An enthusiast for the rights of small language groups, he was at one time active in the Cornish revivalist movement. An enthusiasm for Bulgarian folkdance led him to a job teaching in Bulgaria, where he came into contact with the Romani language, eventually completing a PhD on the Drindari dialect.
He has made a lasting contribution to Romani linguistics and was the first secretary of the WRC Language Commission in 1971. He also wrote with Gratton Puxon the first full-length study of the Romani holocaust, and served for a while as secretary of the early Gypsy Council. Later he worked voluntarily for the National Gypsy Education Council, and the Romany Guild.